


The Secrets Men Keep

by Atra Materia (TheDarkMaterial)



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-02
Updated: 2004-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-06 07:03:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkMaterial/pseuds/Atra%20Materia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is the difference between beast and man? Is it conscious thought, free will, regret? Contemplate thy crimes, and let thy penance by assigned. Come, O vengeful angel, and bear the judged one to his fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secrets Men Keep

There was something he knew, that he had not told; to put it simply, he had a secret.

He was a secret, and he had a secret; it was the sort of conundrum that might have given a lesser man - like Cloud - a headache.

Vincent, however, had had many a year to ponder on the duality of such an existence. True, it did - at times - continue to perplex him, but he had long since given up on any sort of real dwelling on it; had ceased - for the most part - to question it. To do otherwise would have been madness.

He did wonder, now and then, if he might be mad anyway; if his very acceptance of it was a symptom of that. After all, the mad do not know they **are** mad, she had said; they believe themselves the sanest of the sane. It might then stand to reason that he who believes himself mad could, in fact, **be** the sanest of the sane - oh! How she had confused him, and continued to confuse him; the beautiful, the maddening - Lucrecia.

A siren, she was; an angel, a devil; perfect and pure even in her sin. Original sin: Woman, Lucrecia; the downfall of man. A man. Vincent.

To know her, yes, must have been to love her, to lust for her, to be driven mad, mad with desire for her! For it had not been him alone who had succumbed to her charms, no; there had been others as well, had there not? Another, yes, one other - Hojo; Hojo, the snake in beautiful Lucrecia's grass; who crawled upon and through her, who fed her the apple and the seed -

Tarnished claws slammed into the ground, piercing it, penetrating it as surely as - he would be sick, sick, if he thought of it; the world reeled around him, and he closed his eyes - though there was no sanctuary in the black; never had been; only horrifying mosaics set forever in the cracking walls of his mind - twisting, writhing, moaning, mocking. Weeping. No -

No tears for the beautiful Lucrecia, the beautiful whore.

Grass and dirt fell from his talons in clumps as he lurched to his feet; black blood of the Planet - if you can't shed tears, shed blood; be paid in it, Turk; extract your price, your revenge - isn't that why they woke you?

_You. Weren't. The. First._

Red eyes turned on Cloud as the ex-SOLDIER glanced up, his expression as vacantly curious - or curiously vacant - as ever.

_You know nothing, do you? You truly know nothing. You could never understand._

Even among the outcasts, an outcast.

The gaze turned baleful; dulled sanguine boring into bright Mako blue. The eyes of the puppet might pass for normal, save for that glow in the dark; even the eyes of the puppetmaster, though he himself would not. But Vincent, ah; Vincent was the visible beast, the devil in man's clothing.

_More like him, than you could ever realize._

Bitterly, he tore his eyes away. Cloud might have called to him as he began the descent down the wind-bitten hill, but it was lost beneath the vengeful whispers whirling through his thoughts; he either did not hear, or chose not to hear; it made no difference. Metal-shod boots trod off the path and onto the dying grass; he rounded an imaginary corner, and then he was gone.

***

Always, there were the voices.

He had not been asleep when he entered the box - or, at least, he did not think he had been asleep; it became difficult to tell. Hojo had thought him asleep, however, and in the end, that was all that mattered - he had not fought back, had not been able to fight back, and in the years that passed between interment and resurrection, he could never be sure if he would have done so even had he been able. He had, after all, failed to save Lucrecia; why, then, should he be saved?

But there were voices, heard and imagined; there had been Hojo's, when the scientist-cum-mortician laid him to rest, and there had been his own, hoarse and broken, after the lid had closed. There were scratches on its underside, deep scratches, grooves, where he had summoned the strength to lift the artificial arm at last, and claw at the coffin-lid in the hopes of freeing himself. But then there had come Lucrecia's voice, beautiful Lucrecia, mocking him, taunting him...berating him.

He had failed to save Lucrecia; why, then, should he be saved?

After a time, there had come silence, and in the silence, contemplation, realization; he knew that to lay awake and ruminate on his predicament would only lead to his destruction - what of it had not already been set in motion, at least. And so, he had chosen to sleep; to close his eyes, and seek out dreams of happier days; to lose himself within them. Those happy dreams had not, would not come, and he found that he could not wake himself from his nightmares - could not, or would not; perhaps in the depths of his mind, where he would not admit it even to himself, he had thought it an appropriate punishment.

Still, from time to time, the lucid nightmares would be penetrated by a voice that he knew could not have been dreamed, for there were no reasons for such voices to visit him in his misery. They did not know he was there, and they moved on around him, about him, above him. Hojo's, again - which, true, could have been part and parcel with the growing madness, but the ramblings were filled with the sort of technical jargon privy only to scientists; numbers and measurements and materials named in ancient, foreign tongues. He had not listened overmuch to Lucrecia when she had shared her projects with him; not enough to have any lingering familiarity with such terms. So, there was Hojo's, and that was real; there was a shrill, piercing laughter that he vaguely remembered as belonging to the blonde woman from the weapons department, and that was real; and there was the stern rumbling of Old Man Shin-Ra as he looked - no doubt with distaste - over the laboratory gathering dust in his basement, and set down the decree - Shin-Ra has bigger and better facilities to move into, no need for us to make do with this decrepit hovel any longer, and that was real.

And there had been the boy, the child; the silver-haired, cherub-faced son of the angel, Lucrecia; and he had not wanted that to be real.

"I do not like it here, Father."

He had not known the voice, at first. It was the voice of one who has not yet reached that defining moment when gender asserts itself and demands its owner bear the standard of their chromosomatically-chosen side, to be known forevermore as Man or Woman, and abandon the asexual innocence of childhood; it was androgynous; it was educated. Despite its words, there was no fear in it; only a detached sort of unease that might not even properly be called that. It was a clinical emotion - or lack thereof - one hard to place. To classify.

"I do not like it here, Father. Why have we come? It is full of the dead."

"They are not all dead," said the serpent; did he hold still the poisoned apple, offered even unto a child? Suffer them to come! "- and even the dead may live again, someday."

"Mother?"

"She shall be the next to know the pleasures of the flesh reborn."

Tempter, defiler! Speak not such blasphemy; not of the angel Lucrecia!

Has she gone then where you can touch her no more?

Within the coffin, the hand of flesh curled into a fist; he would have raised it to beat against the lid, to cry out in rage; but there was a heavy darkness all around him, a weakness; too long had it been since last he moved. It was not his sin, this sloth; not of his doing! Yet he was punished for it still; prevented from delivering this murderer up for judgment -

As if her blood was any less upon his own hands.

Silence had descended once more, punctuated only by rustles and scrapes, and the occasional grunt. He did not want to know what they were doing; what Hojo was doing - to the boy? Finally, there were words again, and he did not know if that was better or not.

"The infernal woman must have moved them. Remain here while I examine the next antechamber."

Perhaps when the older of the two had reached his second childhood, when he was weak and old, and could fend for himself no more, the boy would remember how his sire had set the dead to care for his son, and return the favour.

There was no response - at least, not one that Vincent could hear; he supposed the boy might have nodded, or given some other non-verbal signal of acknowledgement. He could think of one that would have been fairly suitable, but likely, the child would not have been familiar with it. Presently, there came again the scrapings; they were followed by a sudden crash, and a startled cry.

The boy was opening the coffins.

His nails dug into his palm; it was only then he realized that he had never allowed his hand to go lax. Did he bleed, where they bit into his flesh? Did he have blood ** left ** to bleed? He could not be sure.

The sounds came ever-closer; he trembled, waiting.

Light. Light, cruel and miserable on eyes that had been too long in the dark; had been too long closed. He cried out, and the cry was answered by another from the boy; ah, ** there ** was the fear, true and real; he suspected that whatever had occupied the other boxes was...not alive, and that the child had not expected to uncover anything that was.

He blinked slowly, allowing his eyes a moment to renew their acquaintance with the glow, dim though it was; then they opened, and set for the first time on Lucrecia's son.

The boy was, as suspected, perhaps eight or nine years of age - but even that was enough to shock his slowed heart into skipping a beat; had he been asleep so long? Slender, almost girlish; strands of silver hair wisped around a porcelain face, and in the midst of it, those eyes; the eyes that would be forever burned into Vincent's soul. Mako eyes, gleaming brilliant and blue.

Beautiful, just like her. Beautiful Lucrecia.

Long moments passed in which the pair simply stared, one at the other, in silence; then Vincent swallowed, licked at dry lips; found and forced past them the voice that had not been needed in so long it had nearly forgotten how to speak. It cracked, rang loud and strange in his ears; but it was his.

"He told you they were not all dead."

"I did not believe him," the boy admitted. "I thought he was merely trying to frighten me."

Vincent nodded, though it was little more than a faint shifting of his head; he felt around his face the soft mass of overgrown hair. "It would not be unexpected of him."

"No," the boy agreed, "it would not." He paused, studying the man in the box intently. "Why are you here?" he asked suddenly, tipping his head; his own hair shifted like fragile tendrils of fog in the morning breeze. Ethereal, he seemed; enchanting. Enthralling.

Ah, the ache those words wrought in him! He thought his heart would surely break anew, though it must have never healed to begin with. At last, he but gave another weak nod; his lips worked, but no sound escaped. "I have sinned," he managed finally, and it was again his voice that broke, "and this is my punishment."

"Ah." The boy nodded himself; was he sympathetic? Did he understand? Had he, too, suffered at the hands of Hojo? How could he not have? "What is your name?"

"Vincent." Yet, he could not help but wonder; did he have the right to wear it still as if it was his own? Was he still himself, after all this time; these long years, with the voices whispering, and the madness rising, and the sense of past and self slipping far away? But who else could he be - even were he not himself, could he learn to be someone else? The old beast, new tricks. "Vincent Valentine. And you?"

"Vincent," the boy repeatedly, slowly, as if he was tasting the word as it rolled off his tongue - and, oh! how it rolled off; how it sounded - it sounded as it did when she used to say it. "I am Sephiroth."

Sephiroth. Ah, Hojo, how you mock me! How you mock Creation itself. Sephiroth. Yes, a fitting name for the son of an angel; for the son of beautiful Lucrecia.

Sephiroth was speaking again, though it was not the sound of his voice that coaxed Vincent from his reverie, but the touch of his skin; he had knelt down by the coffin and extended his hand, and his fingers brushed the penitent's cheek. "Have you asked for forgiveness, Vincent?" he murmured - and there was no malice in it, no sarcasm, no cruelty; but it cut to the core. "Perhaps Father can aid you. Would you like me to help you up?"

And it was all too much; the grief rose up in one great wave, and the guilt, and the pain. "No!" he cried, and his body spasmed; the fist that had refused to respond previously jerked up wildly, only to fall once more and strike the innards of the coffin with a muffled thud. "Leave me be! Let me sleep!"

Sephiroth blinked once, and drew back. "Alright," he said, and straightened; he moved from Vincent's sight, and Vincent heard again the scrapings. The boy himself made no further sound as he hefted the coffin-lid and slid it back into place, as if it took no effort at all on his part; the shadows grew, and then all was darkness and silence once more.

***

_No, Cloud, you were not the first._

***

"I knew you would come to me eventually...Vincent."

It still sounded as it had when Lucrecia had said it, though the voice that uttered it now belonged to a man. There was still a femininity about him, but, too, there was a hardness beneath it, a coldness; there was no doubt in Vincent's mind that, should he choose to, Sephiroth was perfectly capable of lifting the great, gleaming blade that dangled like the string of a pull-toy from his left hand, and striking his guest down without a moment of hesitation - as if he wielded the steel thunderbolts of the gods themselves.

"It had to happen," Vincent acknowledged; his voice, too, was surer, though he did not speak often even amongst the small party that had welcomed him so eagerly into its ranks upon his true waking. Only when necessary.

Was it truly necessary now?

"I gather this is not how you envisioned it."

"No." There was bitterness in that statement; he could practically taste it. "No, it is not."

A bitterness that only seemed to amuse Sephiroth, for the corner of the man's mouth twisted into a small, cool smile; the sort of expression worn by the cat who knows the mouse to be caught well and true beneath its paw, and wishes now only to play with its meal before devouring it at last. "We do not always get what we want, Vincent."

"And yet, you seem to believe yourself more deserving of your desires than anyone else who walks the Planet, do you not?" Bitterness was replaced by rage; his eyes glowed dim and red in the darkness, though he did not see it himself.

"That, my dear Valentine..." The smile only grew as Sephiroth strode forward, closing the distance between them - backwards, it was all backwards; he had caught his meal already, and only just now began to hunt it. His free hand rose, and Vincent caught a glimpse of those same delicate, lengthy fingers before they slid past his cheek, and into his hair. The gesture was not so tender, now; the General Reborn seized the dark locks, winding them up cruelly as if they were merely reins for the repositioning of the ex-Turk's head; tilting it this way and that. Finally, he lowered his face, placing it next to Vincent's own; their cheeks nearly brushed, and Vincent could feel the warmth of Sephiroth's breath as it rushed across his ear. "...is because I am."

"You are nothing," Vincent spat; the words tumbled out before he could help himself, and once he could, he realized he did not care to, "unless it be the devil himself. You are nothing, and you deserve nothing, save to receive your judgment, and be put to death, and return to whatever hell you came from!"

"...says the man who was committed to a coffin for his crimes, who would have slept forever for his sins." Sephiroth drew back, though his hand remained firm upon the wild mane. "Tell me, Vincent - have you asked yet for forgiveness? Did she grant you sanctuary, sweet Lucrecia, or did she only cast you out again?" The side of his mouth twisted, pleased with the expression of anguish brought about by his words. "Oh, I know, Vincent. I know what it was you did, now. I asked Father that very day, and he took great relish in informing me - down to the last detail. Is that why you walk the Planet like the Second Child, alone and unwanted, suffering still for that same ancient sin? Is that why you have come now to me?"

Talons clenched, the scrape of metal on metal faint but audible. "I woke only to give you what was not given me, and would come to you for no other reason."

"And that would be...what? A merciful death? How predictable you are, Turk." The devil's voice was full of amusement. "I know you, Vincent. I know who you were, and what you are, and what you might have been, and I know..." Again, he leaned in, and this time their faces did touch; the corner of his mouth rested against Vincent's. "...that you could never kill me. I am a part of Lucrecia, and you could never kill your beautiful Lucrecia, nor that which is hers, though you told her I was dead already."

Numbness. For a moment, there was nothing; then the shock set in, and with it, the pain, and the rage.

"Oh, I know of your visit to Mother, Vincent. I was watching, though neither you or she knew. You were not meant to. At least, not then." Sephiroth chuckled softly, the thump of the Masamune hitting the ground lost somewhere beneath his laughter. "So much more satisfying to let you in on the secret now, when there is nothing you can do but choke on your righteous anger." His hand, now freed of its burden, rose to find purchase on Vincent's hip; no less fervent in its grasp than the fingers that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in the man's hair. "I cannot help but wonder, though, what might happen if you directed it elsewhere. Gave it another form. Would you call my name - or hers?" Mako eyes glittered coldly as he withdrew once more, gaze locked on his captive's face.

"You are sick, Sephiroth," Vincent hissed, shaking his head - as much as the gripping hand would allow, at least. "You are sick. You are flawed. Whatever Hojo sought to create in you, he missed by a mile."

"And you were a failure entirely," Sephiroth countered smoothly. "Which one of us did he put in the box, Vincent - and which did he raise to renew the very world?" His fingers loosened, smoothing down the tousled strands as a mother might a child's - a gesture he, no doubt, had never known; yet he did it well. "Come now, my dear Valentine - you must have been lonely there; so lonely without your Lucrecia. Did you not ache for company? I saw it in your eyes, the day I would have set you free, though I did not know then what it was. I only knew I meant to comfort you, and you refused me." He smiled; Vincent supposed he meant it to seem a kind expression, though there was no warmth in it. "Will you refuse me still?"

"Until the end of my days."

"And if this was the end?"

Vincent said nothing; there was nothing he could say. Madness, to even consider it, and a lie to - No. No, that was an inquiry to which he dared not respond.

Sephiroth but smiled. For a moment, it seemed as there might have been a sort of sadness in it, then it was gone.

"I have known the pleasures of women, Vincent, just as you yourself have." It was almost a purr, his whisper; he put his mouth once more to Vincent's ear. "They do not last long; they either weep for the pain, or expire from ecstasy - and either way, they do not remain to satisfy me a second time. I do not, of course, allow the ones who plead for mercy to go on without it." He was smiling still; Vincent could feel the way his lips curved, and it was not a twist of sorrow. "I have tried men as well, and though they last a little longer..." His fingers stirred, shifting on the ex-Turk's hip; the tip of his thumb stroked along the jut of the bone. "...they, too, leave me in the end." His hand began to drift; his fingers were not the only digits that now stirred. Vincent closed his eyes, stifling a groan.

_Sweet Lucrecia, help me...not that you ever did._

"You and I are made of the same mold, Vincent, flawed though your casting was," Sephiroth continued; his lips trailed slowly, tauntingly, onto Vincent's cheek. "It has occurred to me..." He paused, corner of mouth on corner of mouth; he lingered there long seconds before going on. "...that you might be the playmate I seek; the toy I cannot break."

So close, so close; Vincent's lips hovered but a hair's breadth from meeting Sephiroth's in full. "I am no one's toy," he whispered; they trembled as he spoke, and kept on trembling after.

Laughter, so quiet that Vincent might not even have noticed it had it not been for the faint shaking of the devil's shoulders, and then only because the man was so close. "Ah, but you are, Vincent," Sephiroth assured him. "You were Lucrecia's toy, and then you were Hojo's, and now...now you are mine."

There were no words after that, and could not have been even had he known what he would have said; he had been effectively silenced by the press of Sephiroth's mouth to his own. Still, it had silenced Sephiroth as well; he could not have complained as much as he might have been inclined to do, originally.

"Come now, Vincent." The whisper was passed directly from one mouth to the other; when the shape of the words caused Sephiroth's lips to come together, they closed gently on the lower of Vincent's. "Wrap me in this cloak of yours, hide me as you hide yourself...and no one will ever have to know. You can keep your silence, and I will keep the secret of your sin, for you know the others will have cut me down before even a word can pass between us." The quiet laughter returned, fueled by the same sort of suffocating breath; drawn straight from one set of lungs to fill the next. "Well...I suppose you can keep your illusions, too."

Illusions. Delusions. Madness. The corner of Vincent's eye twitched; his hands rose, slamming into the General's half-clad chest as if to shove the man away from him; and for an instant, all was covered over with a haze of red.

Sephiroth did not move; did not so much as rock from the force of the blow; though after a moment, he took a step back of his own volition, gazing down at the rents left in his flesh by those metal talons. Slowly, his fingers drew from Vincent's hair, coming to rest alongside the ragged lines. They lingered there for a time; half-prodding, half-avoiding in that incredulous fashion oft-displayed by children who, when presented with their first scraped knee, do not know whether to cry, or examine the wound with morbid fascination; a near-imperceptible shudder passed through him as his hand drifted across the gashes. "So," he whispered, his mouth twisting - coldly, cruelly, all too pleased - as his eyes returned to Vincent's face. "You enjoy playing rough, my toy?" His tongue traced the shape of his lips; he lifted his hand, rubbing blood-smeared fingertips together. "You are more like me...than you wish to believe."

"It is not what we are," Vincent muttered; his tongue felt thick, heavy; too slow. "It is what we do."

"Is it?" Sephiroth lofted a brow; the satisfied smirk only growing. "You hurt me, Vincent. You hurt your Lucrecia's child. You hurt a piece of Lucrecia." He extended his hand, scant space left between his fingers and Vincent's lips. "See what you did to me, Vincent? I am bleeding. I am bleeding her blood." His wrist turned, the tip of a single finger parting those lips; penetrating them. "Can you taste it, Vincent? Can you taste...her?"

...and he was weak; he was weak, and he had always been weak; for if he was not, then he would have saved her; he would be seeking her now in her bed, in her flesh, rather than in spilled blood and the empty promises of a madman. His knees threatened to buckle; he reached out again, this time grasping at Sephiroth's waist. He closed his mouth and tasted her there, the sweet honey-salt of beautiful Lucrecia; he closed his eyes and saw her, holy white perfection against the darkness of his sin; she pressed close, and whispered in his ear with the voice of a man.

"Yes, my toy. There you go. There is no reason to hold back, is there? I knew you would come for me, my Valentine..."

And then all was red and black; the dizzying rush of beautiful Lucrecia's blood welling up to drown him, and the darkness waiting to drag him down. His life did not pass before his eyes - before there was nothing, he saw only the light; holy white and dazzling Mako blue.

***

He watched the sun for a long time as it crept over the horizon, eating away at the night. A lesser man might not have appreciated the palette with which it painted the sky; brilliant hues of red and orange gradually fading first to pink, then violet; and, finally, giving way to the gentle blue of dawn.

He, too, rose; reaching down to collect his cloak from where it lay discarded on the ground and fasten it once more about his shoulders. After a moment of contemplation, he grasped the tips of his collar between his fingers, and tugged it up to hide his mouth.

Cloud glanced up as he ascended the hill; it seemed to Vincent as if the man's expression had not changed a bit since the previous night. Perhaps it had not. Perhaps the ex-SOLDIER had lingered there, uncertain; waiting for an unasked question to be answered.

He would simply have to keep waiting. Vincent tore his gaze from Cloud's and shook his head, moving to where the others had begun to disassemble the camp.

There was something he knew, that he would not tell; to put it simply, he had a secret.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Originally written for the 2003 Yuletide challenge. One day, I will come through and edit the run-ons and crazy punctuation - I think I originally meant it to convey a sense of madness, and now it's just irking me.


End file.
